


Tell Me A Secret

by OrilliaOrange



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6217345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrilliaOrange/pseuds/OrilliaOrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard and Garrus can't sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me A Secret

“You can’t dare me to tell you a secret, Vakarian,” Shepard scolded. “That’s not how it works.” 

Garrus leaned back in his chair, and dismissed Shepard’s objection with a wave of his hand.

“You never said I _couldn’t_ ,” he pointed out. “A dare is a dare.” 

Shepard slouched over her mug of tea. It smelled like his mother’s garden, but Garrus couldn’t say that was a point in its favour. 

She reached up to brush her hair off her forehead, and his eyes followed the movement. Her hair stuck up in short spikes where she’d raked her fingers through it. It was growing back, slowly but surely. That had been a shock, back on Omega. Not that she was alive, or working with Cerberus. Her hair. For as long as he’d known her, Shepard had had long hair pulled back into a sleek bun. That was just how she looked. Seeing her shorn, bald head with its dusting of dark hair had been off putting. Garrus had never noticed the delicate structure of her skull before. Or how slim her neck was. Right now, with her head bowed and the _Normandy’_ s lights dimmed for the night-cycle, she looked human.

“Alright Vakarian, what do you want to know?” Shepard grumbled. 

She was smiling. Not the human way, with lips and teeth. More turian, a smile expressed through posture and tone, and her soft grey eyes. 

“The dare was to tell me a secret, Shepard,” Garrus said. “Your choice.” 

Shepard stared at him. 

“Any secret I choose? So it could be something lame like _I stole a mug from the noodle place in Zakera_?” 

“Did you?” Garrus said, curious.

“Nah, just an example,” Shepard waved her hand, dispersing her words.

She sat back in her chair, eyes distant. Her teeth worried at a ragged strip of skin at the edge of her thumbnail. Too human, Garrus thought. The silence between them swallowed the ship, extended beyond the _Normandy_ ’s hull and into the void. It went on for too long, long enough that Garrus shifted in his seat, suddenly awkward. He was overly aware of himself, aware of his every muscle, his bones, the pulsing of his heart that seemed to be the only noise in the entire galaxy. 

“A human woman with no secrets? The vids lied to me!” Garrus said, falling dismally short of funny. 

“Don’t be an ass, Vakarian,” Shepard drawled around her thumbnail. “I’m _thinking_.” 

She wiped her thumb on her pants, leaving a red dot, before picking her mug up, then putting it down when she noticed it had gone cold. 

“You’re stalling,” Garrus grinned. 

Shepard glared at him with laughing eyes. 

“Alright,” she said, sighing. “Alright. Secret time, but I hear one whisper of this and I’ll kick your ass, Vakarian.”

“Not a word,” Garrus said. 

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. Shepard pulled a face at him.

Shepard called up her omni-tool, scrolling through her files until she found the one she wanted. Music blared from the omni-tool’s integrated speakers. A young woman’s voice rang out over the discordant instrumentals that slowly resolved into music.

Shepard’s ears went red. After half a minute, she turned the music off. Her eyes challenged him.

“So your secret is?” Garrus asked, scratching his scarred mandible. 

Shepard pressed her mouth flat. 

“You’re really gonna make me say it?” she complained.

“Your dare was _tell me a secret_ , not _play thirty seconds of music then stare at me_ ,” Garrus said. 

He sat back, tilting his chair onto its back legs. Smug. 

“Next time I can’t sleep, I’m letting Chakwas tranq me,” Shepard muttered. “I was in a band, before I enlisted.” 

“A band. You,” Garrus said. 

He grinned. 

Shepard’s face screwed up. Even her nose wrinkled. It was damn cute. Garrus felt his heart trip. “A band. Me. Let us never speak of this again,” Shepard groused. 

“No, no now you’ve _got_ to explain this,” Garrus begged, dropping his chair back onto all four legs. 

“Cram it, Vakarian,” Shepard said. 

A mischievous smile danced onto her face and into her eyes. Garrus gave her a wary look. 

This time, it was Shepard who rocked her chair onto its back legs. When she smirked at him, Garrus knew he was in trouble. 

“Now. Truth or dare, Vakarian?”

**Author's Note:**

> Satine86 is a bad influence and an enabler <3


End file.
